Jeffrey Katzenberg on 3-D: Depth Becomes Him

This Friday, DreamWorks Animation will release Monsters Vs. Aliens, the latest manifestation of Hollywood’s long dormant, now hot-and-heavy love affair with 3-D. Brewing since the middle of the decade, it got underway in earnest last year with the releases of Journey to the Center of the Earth, Bolt, and the Hannah Montana-Miley Cyrus concert movie. This year audiences have been treated to 3-D releases of My Bloody Valentine, Coraline, and Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience, with as many as a dozen more “depthies,” as they were briefly known in the ‘50s, on the way. Movie-goers have for the most part embraced the medium: while the Jonas Brothers fell short at the box-office, Coraline and My Bloody Valentine performed well—with the added benefit of premium admissions prices, ranging anywhere from $2 to $4 more than a normal ticket, for their 3-D engagements (which in general outperform 2-D showings of the same films).Along with Disney Animation, Pixar, and a handful of individual A-list directors—notably Robert Zemeckis and James Cameron—DreamWorks Animation has bet the house on 3-D: going forward, all the studio’s films will be produced in 3-D. Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks’ CEO, has taken it upon himself to become the medium’s biggest cheerleader, flogging the virtues of 3-D to both the public and the industry. When we spoke he told me he committed to the medium after being wowed by Zemeckis’ The Polar Express, which opened in a 3-D Imax version in 2004. Like his peers, Katzenberg is banking on improved digital technology to make 3-D a new standard rather than the short-lived, eye-straining novelty recalled by survivors of previous 3-D booms. One stumbling block has been a dispute between studios and theater owners over who should pay for expensive theater conversions, which has slowed the adoption of 3-D by exhibitors—a problem further exacerbated by the world having recently misplaced its economy. Thus DreamWorks, which at one point was hoping to open Monsters Vs. Aliens on somewhere between 4000 and 5000 3-D screens in the U.S., has had to settle for 2000 (along with another 2500 2-D engagements).

Nevertheless, Katzenberg remains bullish. Someday soon, he says, every movie will be in 3-D...

Bruce Handy: What does 3-D really do for an audience?

Jeffrey Katzenberg: Well, you know, we, as human beings, we have five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight. And the two senses that filmmakers use to affect an audience are hearing and sight. And if you think about the evolution of sound, in our lifetime it has gone from vinyl to an 8-track to a CD to digital. But sight is kind of at vinyl right now. Whatever sight—whether it's in a magazine that you're looking at, or it's on a television set, or on your iPod, or in a movie theater—we're kind of at vinyl. (Laughs.) And 3-D is the next great revolution here for film.

There have been two previous revolutions that have occurred in movies. The first one is when they went from silent film to talkies, and the next one happened when they went from black-and-white to color. Which was 70 years ago. In my opinion, this is the third revolution. And I know this is hard to imagine, sitting here today, but in my opinion, in a handful of years, there will be no 2-D movies—because 3-D’s better. And it is going to be affordable—both for the filmmaking, and the exhibition and the consumer—and it's a better experience. And I don't believe we will go backwards.

This is really a game-changer for the movie business. If you think about it, the home experience in the last 10 years has gone through the most amazing period of innovation of our lifetime. We now have these amazing flat-screen televisions, you know, with digital SurroundSound, high-definition, Blu-ray. It's dazzling what we can do in our home—and it keeps innovating. Meanwhile, the theater experience hasn't changed at all. It hasn't. In fact, many people would argue that it deteriorated as an experience. Which is a combination of price, particularly prices at the concession stands, and the fact that there's 21 minutes of advertising now in the theater. And 3-D is the first thing, in my lifetime in the movie business, in which something came along that said: Here's the chance for the movie-theater experience to innovate at a place that, right now, the home cannot compete with. And not only a reason for people to keep going to the movies but also for people who stopped going to the movies to come back to it, because of how unique it is. We're spending a lot more money—we're spending $15 million more to make a movie in 3-D than we were spending making it in CG alone. And, you know, my bet—our company's bet—is that the consumer will pay. Which they are now. But I believe that they will pay, you know, a $5 premium to see these films in 3-D.

Have you done market research, seeing if that's the case?

Well, no. There have been movies that have been released. Everything that's come out in 3-D, the 3-D versions of the film have performed significantly better than the nonstereo version of the film.

Are you really increasing the audience though? Isn’t there an issue of cannibalization? Like you're getting a 3-D admission at the expense of a 2-D admission?

Well, you are. But that's a good thing, 'cause a 3-D admission is a premium thing. So, yeah, you are—and that's exactly the idea. I would hope that nobody wanted to see our movies in 2-D, that they would wait to see them in 3-D. But they would see that as an exceptional experience, and something that they would see value enough to pay for it.

And you’re not worried about over saturating the market with 3-D?

I'm hoping that all movies are released in 3-D. And then our edge isn't that we're in 3-D, versus somebody else's movie in 2-D, but that we're just making the best 3-D film. And if we're making the best stories and in 3-D, people will want to pay a premium to see them. But it's not that 3-D is the advantage. We're not looking at 3-D as something that's either exclusively ours or is a competitive advantage. Just like color is not a competitive advantage.

Because one might think another model could have been: DreamWorks owns 3-D.

I don't think we'd ever get enough adoption in the marketplace.

You mean theater owners installing 3-D systems?

Yeah. They wouldn't invest in the technology [if 3-D was exclusive to DreamWorks Animation]. But my bet is that we'll use 3-D uniquely. There'll be a signature style and experience seeing our movies in 3-D as opposed to somebody else's. Which is the same thing with movies in general. You know, Kung Fu Panda is not a film likely you would see made by anybody else.

To the extent you and everyone else are using 3-D to get people back in theaters, won’t that be a problem when 3-D television comes in? It’s not that far off the horizon.

It'll take a lot of time to get there. And there are two practical aspects of the home experience that are going to be an interesting challenge to 3-D. You'll be able to do it in home, but there are two things that make 3-D exceptional, and the degree to which you compromise either of these two things, it starts to quickly compromise the experience. One, it needs to hit your peripheral vision. So if you're looking at a 30-foot screen, when you get much beyond 30 feet away from the screen, the effect actually loses its impact. So if you have a 50-inch television set, in order to get the best experience, you should sit 50 inches away. I now am going to challenge you to go home tonight and measure how far where you sit is from your television set. And I am pretty happy to bet with you that you sit some multiple of 50 inches away from your TV. It's just how our living spaces are created. We don't sit like this [leans way forward] watching TV.

The second thing is that you need to be in a dark environment. When I say "dark," I mean no light source in there. Any light starts to dissipate the 3-D experience—quickly. So I can tell you—just because me, I'm sort of fascinated—I went home, and I wandered around my house. And I can tell you, the only place in my home in which I could have that really fully dark theater experience is in the coat closet in the entryway to my home. And here's the problem: I can't get a 50-inch television set in there. (Laughs)

So 3-D will come to the home. And I think the place that's actually going to be more interesting is, it's going to come on your computer and on your handheld devices—anything that you lean into. And there's a thing called autostereo, where you won't wear glasses. So I think this is going to migrate very quickly out into the world. But I think the home theater experience is a ways down.

I think it’s interesting that 3-D filmmaking is currently so focused on big event movies, which are already so immersive, and kids’ movies. It’s almost superfluous: kids are already so immediately involved when they watch something. My son didn't need 3-D to make him flinch during the scary parts of Kung Fu Panda.

It's not about flinching—it's just about how involved you get with the story. And since the job of the filmmakers in making that movie is to get you to care—either care-love or care-hate—about Po vs. Tai Lung, the degree to which you can enhance those feelings, and make them stronger, makes the movie more powerful. It's not about throwing things out at the audience [with 3-D effects]—it's not about assaulting the person. It's actually just the opposite. It's about bringing them in, allowing the audience to actually exist inside the film’s world in a way in which we exist here with one another [in real life], and to heighten the feelings that you get. One thing which was a very deeply and strongly debated here was an artistic question: Are we using this as a device in which we would engage the audience consciously in this new technique—in which we would reach out and play to the audience? Which is how 3-D has been used almost exclusively to date. Or is this a way to immerse an audience into the story-telling, to enhance the emotions of a story?

So you think films like Kung Fu Panda or WALL-E, which are already terrific films that audiences love -- you think they really are significantly better in 3-D?

A hundred percent. It's like saying: Is a movie better in color than in black-and-white? We see in color. So when you give an artist, the filmmaker, color—there are books, and books and books, and legends and legends of how color is used by filmmakers. You know: when you're in a scary environment, it gets red and dark; and when you're in safe, it's green and blue. Vittorio Storaro [the cinematographer who won Oscars for Apocalypse Now, Reds, and The Last Emperor] talks about the use of color, that he uses it to paint. He tells you he's painting a picture here. And, again, that painting is being used to make you feel. And so giving dimension on top of color is 100% a better experience.

Is this "palette of dimensionality" equivalent to color?

At least, at least. It is to me. You'll judge yourself.

Thinking about it, something intimate like My Dinner with Andre might actually be more interesting in 3-D than something like, say, Transformers. It would certainly be more of a test of the medium.

What people think is that when you're big, and you're in action, that 3-D shows itself off in the best possible way. It's actually the opposite of that. The more intimate and the more acting that you're seeing, the more the director can bring you into sort of the realness of the world and the situation. And I think it's more compelling.

But at the same time is there a danger with 3-D that by making the experience more real it could spoil the larger-than-life aspect of movies, take away some of the mystique and mystery of movie stars? Maybe distance—literally and figuratively—enhances the experience?

Well, I don't think 3-D takes away from the mystique and the mystery. But you know, these are all good questions, and they're all things we've thought about. And, you know, I look at it in sort of three ways. I look at it historically. When this level of change and innovation came along in the past, it created a huge debate. And all the different arguments that you're posing are things that were debated about each of these first two revolutions that occurred in film. So they are valid questions to ask. We've answered them to our satisfaction here and made our bet. And our bet is: This is more better. (Laughs) Here's the only thing which I'm certain about, is 3-D will not take a bad movie and make it good. That is not going to happen.

I disagree.

I'll bet on that.

I did not like Polar Express, it’s an awful movie ... but I loved it in 3-D. I think I would have found it unbearable as a 2-D movie, but I thought the 3-D was so spectacular.

That’s because it was new, and you hadn't seen it before. And as soon as 3-D becomes an everyday occurrence, it will no longer do that for you. But that first opportunity of experiencing this is such a wow! As, obviously, it was for me. You know, I mean, I'm not sure that anybody else was impacted as much by that movie as I was. (Laughs) You know, literally, I took the entire direction of this company and made a 90-degree turn off of seeing that film, in terms of what its promise and its opportunity was. We bet the ranch that 3-D is, in fact, an exceptional experience. Having said that, I'm certain that it will not take a bad movie of ours and make it good. I think it'll take a really great movie of ours and make it an unbelievable theater experience.

And, you know, when you look at this on the filmmaker's side, here are the people that are excited about, that are actually working in 3-D as we speak today: Jim Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Bob Zemeckis, George Lucas. And I can go on, but let's just start with those five. (Laughs) If those five guys are excited about this, isn’t that, in itself, a great endorsement for what its promise is? They're the alphas. You know, when the alphas move, the rest of the herd follows. (Laughs)

But again, those are also people that work in a certain kind of big scale.

But that's what what's going lead this.

But are there people—more like a Martin Scorsese or, I don’t know, a Judd Apatow who are looking into 3-D?

You know, they will. I mean, the answer is, some of them have been by. We've shown people what we’re doing. Spielberg, and Jim Cameron and I, we did a symposium at the director's guild in March. They had almost 300 people show up for it. All directors, obviously. And a cross section of new directors and very, very experienced and accomplished directors. We had a great turnout for it. I showed some footage to them, and we spent an hour and a half having this exact dialogue. One of the directors asked me if I thought that The Queen would be better in 3-D. And I actually said: Well, you know, I'm not sure. I was fumbling on the answer. And Jim Cameron jumped right in, and right on top of it, and said: “That's the question that was asked 70 years ago, when people saw the first films in Technicolor. And the answer is: Yes—The Queen would be a better movie authored in 3-D. It would be more immersive—more compelling. And I can assure you that, after I do Avatar [his 3-D science-fiction epic, due out this December], the next movie I'm gonna do is going to be a small, intimate, dramatic film. And I want to do it in 3-D.”

I can't imagine there was this much cooperation between filmmakers when sound came in.

I think there was. But these things are driven, as I say, more by the artists and the filmmakers than they are by corporations. And so I think it's not about whether the managements at Universal, or Paramount, or Sony or Warner's, or whatever, are excited about this. It's their filmmakers.